Sunday, May 26, 2013

I was thinking about writing something for Memorial Day when this touching story was forwarded to me by my brother.

The
21-year old American B-17 pilot glanced outside his cockpit and froze. He
blinked hard and looked again, hoping it was just a mirage. But his co-pilot
stared at the same horrible vision. "My God, this is a nightmare," the co-pilot
said. "He's going to destroy us," the pilot agreed.The men
were looking at a gray German Messerschmitt fighter hovering just three feet off
their wingtip. It was five days before Christmas 1943, and the fighter had
closed in on their crippled American B-17 bomber for the kill.

Brown's
Crippled B-17 Stalked by Stigler's ME-109The B-17
pilot, Charles Brown, was a 21-year-old West Virginia farm boy on his first
combat mission. His bomber had been shot to pieces by swarming fighters, and his
plane was alone, struggling to stay in the skies above Germany . Half his crew
was wounded, and the tail gunner was dead, his blood frozen in icicles over the
machine guns.But when
Brown and his co-pilot, Spencer "Pinky" Luke, looked at the fighter pilot again,
something odd happened. The German didn't pull the trigger. He stared back at
the bomber in amazement and respect. Instead of pressing the attack, he nodded
at Brown and saluted. What happened next was one of the most remarkable acts of
chivalry recorded during World War II.

USAAF
Lt. Charles BrownCharles
Brown was on his first combat mission during World War II when he met an enemy
unlike any other.Revenge,
not honor, is what drove 2nd Lt. Franz Stigler to jump into his fighter that
chilly December day in 1943. Stigler wasn't just any fighter pilot. He was an
ace. One more kill and he would win The Knight's Cross, German's highest award
for valor.Yet
Stigler was driven by something deeper than glory. His older brother, August,
was a fellow Luftwaffe pilot who had been killed earlier in the war. American
pilots had killed Stigler's comrades and were bombing his country's
cities.Stigler was standing near his fighter on a German airbase when he heard a
bomber's engine. Looking up, he saw a B-17 flying so low it looked like it was
going to land. As the bomber disappeared behind some trees, Stigler tossed his
cigarette aside, saluted a ground crewman and took off in pursuit.As
Stigler's fighter rose to meet the bomber, he decided to attack it from behind.
He climbed behind the sputtering bomber, squinted into his gun sight and placed
his hand on the trigger. He was about to fire when he hesitated. Stigler was
baffled. No one in the bomber fired at him.He
looked closer at the tail gunner. He was still, his white fleece collar soaked
with blood. Stigler craned his neck to examine the rest of the bomber. Its skin
had been peeled away by shells, its guns knocked out. One propeller wasn'
turning. Smoke trailed from another engine. He could see men huddled inside the
shattered plane tending the wounds of other crewmen.Then he
nudged his plane alongside the bomber's wings and locked eyes with the pilot
whose eyes were wide with shock and horror.

Luftwaffe
Major Franz StiglerStigler
pressed his hand over the rosary he kept in his flight jacket. He eased his
index finger off the trigger. He couldn't shoot. It would be
murder.Stigler
wasn't just motivated by vengeance that day. He also lived by a code. He could
trace his family's ancestry to knights in 16th century Europe . He had once
studied to be a priest. A German pilot who spared the enemy, though, risked
death in Nazi Germany. If someone reported him, he would be
executed.Yet
Stigler could also hear the voice of his commanding officer, who once told him:
"You follow the rules of war for you -- not your enemy. You fight by rules to
keep your humanity."Alone
with the crippled bomber, Stigler changed his mission. He nodded at the American
pilot and began flying in formation so German anti-aircraft gunners on the
ground wouldn't shoot down the slow-moving bomber. (The Luftwaffe had B-17s of
its own, shot down and rebuilt for secret missions and training.) Stigler
escorted the bomber over the North Sea and took one last look at the American
pilot. Then he saluted him, peeled his fighter away and returned to Germany
."Good
luck," Stigler said to himself. "You're in God's hands now..." Franz Stigler
didn't think the big B-17 could make it back to England and wondered for years
what happened to the American pilot and crew he encountered in
combat.

Charles
Brown, with his wife, Jackie (left), with Franz Stigler, with his wife,
Hiya.As he
watched the German fighter peel away that December day, 2nd Lt. Charles Brown
wasn't thinking of the philosophical connection between enemies. He was thinking
of survival. He flew his crippled plane, filled with wounded, back to his base
in England and landed with one of four engines knocked out, one failing and
barely any fuel left. After his bomber came to a stop, he leaned back in his
chair and put a hand over a pocket Bible he kept in his flight jacket. Then he
sat in silence.Brown
flew more missions before the war ended. Life moved on. He got married, had two
daughters, supervised foreign aid for the U.S. State Department during the
Vietnam War and eventually retired to Florida .Late in
life, though, the encounter with the German pilot began to gnaw at him. He
started having nightmares, but in his dream there would be no act of mercy. He
would awaken just before his bomber crashed.Brown
took on a new mission. He had to find that German pilot. Who was he? Why did he
save my life? He scoured military archives in the U.S. and England . He attended
a pilots' reunion and shared his story. He finally placed an ad in a German
newsletter for former Luftwaffe pilots, retelling the story and asking if anyone
knew the pilot.On
January 18, 1990, Brown received a letter. He opened it and read: "Dear Charles,
All these years I wondered what happened to that B-17, did she make it home? Did
her crew survive their wounds? To hear of your survival has filled me with
indescribable joy..."It was
Stigler.He had
left Germany after the war and moved to Vancouver , British Columbia , in 1953.
He became a prosperous businessman. Now retired, Stigler told Brown that he
would be in Florida come summer and "it sure would be nice to talk about our
encounter." Brown was so excited, though, that he couldn't wait to see Stigler.
He called directory assistance for Vancouver and asked whether there was a
number for a Franz Stigler. He dialed the number, and Stigler picked
up."My God,
it's you!" Brown shouted as tears ran down his cheeks. Brown had to do more. He
wrote a letter to Stigler in which he said: "To say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK
YOU on behalf of my surviving crew members and their families appears totally
inadequate."One of
Brown's friends was there to record the summer reunion. Both men looked like
retired businessmen: they were plump, sporting neat ties and formal shirts. They
fell into each other' arms and wept and laughed. They talked about their
encounter in a light, jovial tone.The mood
then changed. Someone asked Stigler what he thought about Brown. Stigler sighed
and his square jaw tightened. He began to fight back tears before he said in
heavily accented English: "I love you, Charlie."Stigler
had lost his brother, his friends and his country. He was virtually exiled by
his countrymen after the war. There were 28,000 pilots who fought for the German
air force. Only 1,200 survived.

The war
cost him everything. Charlie Brown was the only good thing that came out of
World War II for Franz. It was the one thing he could be proud of. The meeting
helped Brown as well, says his oldest daughter, Dawn Warner.

They met
as enemies but Franz Stigler, on left, and Charles Brown, ended up as fishing
buddies.Brown
and Stigler became pals. They would take fishing trips together. They would fly
cross-country to each other homes and take road trips together to share their
story at schools and veterans' reunions. Their wives, Jackie Brown and Hiya
Stigler, became friends.Brown's
daughter says her father would worry about Stigler's health and constantly check
in on him."It
wasn't just for show," she says. "They really did feel for each other. They
talked about once a week." As his friendship with Stigler deepened, something
else happened to her father, Warner says "The nightmares went away."Brown
had written a letter of thanks to Stigler, but one day, he showed the extent of
his gratitude. He organized a reunion of his surviving crew members, along with
their extended families. He invited Stigler as a guest of honor.During
the reunion, a video was played showing all the faces of the people that now
lived -- children, grandchildren, relatives -- because of Stigler's act of
chivalry. Stigler watched the film from his seat of honor."Everybody
was crying, not just him," Warner says.Stigler
and Brown died within months of each other in 2008. Stigler was 92, and Brown
was 87. They had started off as enemies, became friends, and then something
more.After he
died, Warner was searching through Brown's library when she came across a book
on German fighter jets. Stigler had given the book to Brown. Both were country
boys who loved to read about planes.Warner
opened the book and saw an inscription Stigler had written to Brown:In 1940,
I lost my only brother as a night fighter. On the 20th of December, 4 days
before Christmas, I had the chance to save a B-17 from her
destruction,a plane
so badly damaged it was a wonder that she was still flying.The
pilot, Charlie Brown, is for me as precious as my brother
was.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

This very unusual bit of bookplate ephemera arrived recently and I am just
starting to do some research.

The framed group of
five leather bookplates was used by Charles J. Sawyer Ltd , booksellers and fine
art dealers.

The Red bookplate is
for R.Esmerian who I suspect might be the collector Raphael
Esmerian,

The next bookplate is
nameless.

The small brown
bookplate in the center is for Marten

The blue bookplate is
nameless.

The larger brown
bookplate is for Alfred B. Koch

The prices on the back
are difficult to read from the scan.

“Cost of blocks from
£20 to£40 according to design

Bookplates 1 S/6 d
each for quantities”of not less than 50”*

*Note received from
Anthony Pincott about this pricing-

“in other words at a pre-decimalisation
(pre-1971) price of 1 shilling and sixpence each "

One Thing Leads To Another #1

While I was trying to find out if the names on the leather bookplates were for actual owners I started to search the name R.Esmerian and stumbled upon a 2009 interview with the noted bookseller John Windle.

Here is a link to the article .It is well written and fascinating. . I wish I had the movie rights to his life story.

One Thing Leads To Another#2

Several weeks ago I posted the Gandy image shown above. It was and still is a mystery bookplate about which I would like to learn more.The image inspired Shaun in England and he sent me the following Email

"Hi,

I started to learn hand engraving within the last year,and am always
looking for suitable images to engrave. Bookplates are ideal as a reference to
learn how to achieve an effect,and came across your site.

There is an art
from called a 'Love Token'. A coin is filed flat on one side,and an image
engraved. The link is a pic of a Silver 1944 Walking Liberty silver 1/2
dollar. I used a bookplate image that had the Eagle and the words 'Gandy' from
your
site.

It's
not exactly how I would have liked it to come out,but my ability improves with
each coin I engrave and it went for $62 dollars on Ebay,but probably took 10
hours to engrave :) If I ever do something similar,it might take just as
long,but look much better.

The pics on your site are really good
quality,thanks for taking the time and effort.
Cheers Shaun "

New Book about Paul Revere Written by Fellow Collector/Dealer Tom Boss

Paul Revere's Bookplate for John Gardiner of Gardiner's Island
By Thomas G.
Boss

Printed letterpress in an edition of 50 copies by John Kristensen
of
the Firefly Press in Boston. All copies have tipped in reproductions
of
the John Gardiner bookplate and other Revere plates, including the
John
Butler plate which is only known in two copies and which has
hitherto not
been reproduced in print. The first fifteen deluxe copies
are printed on
Zerkall handmade paper and are accompanied by an
original print of the
Gardiner Revere plate, mounted in a gilt frame
but easily removable for
placement elsewhere in a collection. All
copies of the work are hand bound in
red wrappers. The thirty-five
regular copies are printed on Neenah Laid
paper.

The text of the book comprises a short history of the Gardiner's
and
Revere bookplates followed by a list of holdings of Revere plates
and
a ranking of rarity of each one, ranging from no known copies
to
thousands of examples!

The Bookplate Society’s members’
auctions, three each year, offer a wide range of material, mostly British 18th
and 19th century exlibris, but there are also Continental European and North
American items. These sales are not open to non-members. Members either attend
in person or bid in advance by email or post. However, the Society is doing
something different this summer by holding an entirely web- and email-based
auction, which on this occasion is open to non-members.

Given that this is a manual
system, lacking the software resources of eBay, the auction is being drawn out
over ten weekly cycles of bidding, and participants can only submit one set of
bids per week. Bidders are encouraged to bid for as many items as possible on
the first occasion, because in subsequent weeks there is a restriction on the
number of additional bids that can be placed. There is a further bias helping
people who bid early, because in the event of equal bids the earlier bidder wins
the day. The deadline for the first round of bids is Sunday, 2 June (6pm BST)
and this auction ends on Sunday 4 August 2013 (6pm BST).

To view the listings, go to www.bookplatesociety.org/WebAuction1.htm
, and if you wish to join in the auction you will need to read the notes and
write to the auction address. Non-members of the Society must register their
details prior to emailing bids.

This is an auction in
slow-motion (!), but it will nevertheless be interesting to see how it works
out. As the notes point out, this is not a commercial venture, but designed to
offer bookplate collectors some summertime fun.

Lot84

This bookplate of Morton and Helena Stephenson
probably dates from about 1920. It is the work of Henry Justice Ford
(1860–1941), portrait and landscape painter, also book illustrator. He has a
short write-up in Wikipedia. Recourse to www.freebmd.org.uk soon established that
the owners of this bookplate were Morton F G Stephenson (born Kensington,
London, 1884) and Marion Helena née Deverell (born in 1885, also in Kensington),
and they were married in 1916 in Central London.

Lot # 59

Matilda Constance Ismay (1877, New York -1963,
England) was the sister-in-law of Bruce Ismay (1862-1939), chairman and managing
director of the White Star Line. He attracted severe moral opprobrium and was
ostracised after the Titanic disaster. Not only was he in no small part
responsible for the lack of provision of lifeboats, but he was among the
survivors, notwithstanding the loss of many women and children. Daughters of
George Richard Schieffelin and Julia Matilda née Delaplaine, the two Schieffelin
sisters, Matilda Constance Schieffelin and Julia Florence Schieffelin, married
two Ismay brothers, Charles Bower Ismay(1874 - 1924) and Joseph Bruce Ismay. Matilda married
Charles in New York in 1900. She is buried at Haselbech, near Kettering,
Northamptonshire

Lot 44

Signed PB, the bookplate of Margaret Brudenell
Bruce is the work of Pleasance Bruce, depicting St Margaret Virgin & Martyr,
whose feast day is July 20. Margaret Renshaw m.1873 Lord Charles Frederick
Brudenell-Bruce (1849-1936), brother to the Marquess of Ailesbury. Daughter of
James Renshaw of Broughton, Lancashire, she d.1913.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

I am always pleased to promote young artists .Joe Dragunas sent me some information about his bookplate designs. I sent him a few questions which he promptly answered.

"Hello Lew! Thank you so much for doing this. I love bookplates, and am on a fierce campaign to bring them back into the mainstream. "

Joe Dragunas in his studio

At what age did you decide to become an illustrator ?

I have been drawing since I was able to hold a crayon, and have
illustrated my entire life, but it wasn't until my early thirty's until I decided
to do it professionally.

Do you have any formal art training ?

I have no art training whatsoever, I am a firm believer in self
teaching. As an artist you should explore every technique and style before you
choose a medium you want to dedicate yourself to. I believe you should observe
and learn, make the mistakes on your own, and emerge on the other side with your
own personal style.

What technique do you use for bookplates ?

All the illustrations and bookplates on my website are all done with a
brush and ink. I use a very fine, size 00 brush, and speedball ink. Unless there
is a straight border, then I use a rapidograph technical pen, but as I said
that's only for the borders.

Can you send me some jpeg examples of your favorites ?

As requested , here are some of my favorites. Many more examples can be seen at my website.

The website is set up so that you can actually order samples to touch feel and evaluate.

The samples are all printed on high quality acid free card stock, . I use a creamy color, to give an aged illusion.

.Here are some of my favorites:

Click on Images to Enlarge

The website has prices for individual bookplates .Do you have pricing for larger
quantities ?

Unfortunately, the website does not allow for ordering multiple copies, My email address is on the site
and I would be pleased to discuss pricing for multiple copies with anyone who contacts me.

Have you designed any custom bookplates?

I would be absolutely ecstatic to design a custom bookplate. All
my current designs are for my own amusement.

Have you designed any bookplates for yourself , friends or family?

I just finished one for My sisters wedding. She and her husband wanted an image
with both a dragon, and a goat. to represent their last names. . They are
both architects, so I worked a few appropriate tools into the design as
well.

Heraldic designs are my all time favorite, so I decided to do a
knight's crest with a goat head as the crest, and a dragon sprawled through the
mantling. On the shield, I included the words "from the library of the
Kosikowski's, est 2013" .

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Under normal circumstances the Lloyd Osbourne bookplate would not merit very much attention.
It is unique because of a collaboration between Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson Lloyd Osbourne
As adults they collaborated on three novels.Their collaboration really started when RLS purchased a do it yourself printing press for Lloyd when he was about thirteen years old. .RLS wrote poems and did wood cuts for Lloyd's Davos Press.The woodcut in Lloyd's bookplate was done by R.L.S.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Lloyd Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson

Do it yourself printing presses were very popular boy's toys in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries.
President Grant purchased one for his son Jessie, H. L. Mencken was given one at age eight in 1888 and
Lloyd Osbourne was given one at age thirteen,.
A picture of the Davos press can be seen by following this link to Textualities by Elaine Greig

A friend sent photos of a book, "Crown of Wild Olive" by John Ruskin that was
owned by his father. It is probably from a set published by Merriam, but what
interests us is the metal cover. The design is quite precise, making me think
it was stamped. But why? Was this a short-lived fad? Or some devoted arts &
crafts artisan. Please feel free to publish if you find it interesting. I would really like to know more.

This one puzzles me. Perhaps a bookseller had some very fine reference books which customers kept trying to buy so he inserted this label in them..What do you think?See you next week.Bookplatemaven@hotmail.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------